edged with mist

I’ve been experiencing sometimes debilitating, chronic, nearly daily headaches for the past two years. Like for instance, in this moment, 4h30 in the morning and unable to sleep because the headache is so great. But if I lay in bed trying to sleep, the pain is all the more apparent. I need distraction. So I’m sitting in the dark, my computer screen is at its dimmest, and I have my big, dark Tom Ford sunglasses on... (so I look gooood, haha just kidding ) often writing takes some of my attention from the pounding in my head. Sometimes I’m able to just sleep...but tonight, I’m bored, restless. As always I walk around the house in my sunglasses, put a sweatshirt hood over my head, listen to my migraine play list, and take two Fioricet every five hours.

"...and he could be intolerable, he could be impossible; but adorable to walk with on a morning like this." Mrs. Dalloway

My doctor says it’s been medically proven that thinking of happy moments and memories will help lessen the pain (of the headache, au moins) and so I search for instances where I’ve truly felt happy, warm, hopeful even, a thought, perhaps, with a strength that can take me away..and often you come to mind.. and for a breath or two, I find some level of peace within my grasp.

"...when we sit close we melt into each other with phrases... we are edged with mist." The Waves

As a consolation through this, I happened to discover that Virginia Woolf also suffered debilitating headaches. I sincerely believe her work is brilliant, genius down to the last word she wrote. Every sentence she crafted means something to me, each and every word, even out of context, brings me pleasure, inspiration, admiration; speaking to me, with eloquence and sentiment from another place and time, the very thoughts that clutter my mind; the precision with which her words casually flow off the page lulls me into another world, and gives me hope in the prospects of my continued pursuit of writing.

“...in a sunset mood of benignant reminiscence, which it would have been hard to disturb had there been need.” Night and Day

And in the end, she did fill her pockets with rocks and walk into the river to rid herself and her loved ones of the burden they all endured (she suffered from more than headaches). A meditated relief from the struggle. I’m looking to write a different ending for myself, but I suppose we must wait and see where life takes us. Until then I relish her words and with them I find my escape. Modestly I wish to one day, possess even one hundredth of her talent in expression, her agility and tenderness, her subtle ability to weave words into phrases that run together by accident and calculation, creating moments of elevated meaning and discovering the compliments and contradictions amongst which such words were destined to wander.

"...for they might be parted for hundreds of years, but suddenly it would come over her, if he were here with me now, what would he say? Some days, some sights bringing him back to her calmly, without the old bitterness; which perhaps was the reward of having cared for people; they came back in the middle of St. James park on a fine morning." Mrs. Dalloway